Yossi Abu, CEO of key Israeli producer NewMed Energy, was asked on his firm’s 21 August earnings call to comment on the progress of a joint bid by BP and UAE state firm Adnoc to take 50% of his company. The bid, worth around $2bn, would see a JV of the two firms buy all of the 45% of free-floating equity as well as an additional 5% from parent firm Delek Group to leave both Delek and the JV with 50% each (MEES, 31 March).
Mr Abu says there are “two main work streams” to getting the deal over the line. In terms of securing the agreement of companies themselves – NewMed and parent Delek Group on one side and BP and Adnoc on the other – Mr Abu says “this is in an advanced stage. We don’t see any show-stopper.” Likewise, he sees no issue with Israeli regulatory approval: “‘the more the merrier’, that’s kind of the approach of the Israeli government to try and bring more [companies] into the activity here. This has been vocally stated in the bid round that has been run lately.” (CONTINUED - 455 WORDS)
